Hb79's Mash Tun

[brettprevans]

i was joking about the killing you part. it might make you sick but i doubt it will kill you! i love silicone. silicone fixes everything in my book.

 

[Pennywise]

Ahh, don't mind me then, most jokes go over my head. Still rather no get sick either. Maybe a quick call to selleys is in order just to see exactly how long food contact is safe for at mashing temps. I'd say a few mins wouldn't be an issue but possibly an hour or 90 mins might be pushing the friendship a little.

 

[Pennywise]

Well here's the underside of the manifold, as you can see after drilling the holes and breaking my drill bits I cracked it and took the trusty old angle grinder to it. Although by the sounds of it I'll need to add more slots in between the ones already there. Maybe get rid of the pieces with the holes in them?

 

[manticle]

Manifolds are a sight to behold. Good work.

When making mine I was advised to run the central piece parallel with the others. Mine is similar to the one yardy linked to (and his tutorial was a great help in making it). I had a couple of goes at it - on the first I tried drilling as well but like you I just snapped drill bits. Dremel with a diamond wheel was my saviour.

 

[Steve]

Well here's the underside of the manifold, as you can see after drilling the holes and breaking my drill bits I cracked it and took the trusty old angle grinder to it. Although by the sounds of it I'll need to add more slots in between the ones already there. Maybe get rid of the pieces with the holes in them?

Leave the bits with holes but get the slots into it. With the slotted pieces get another 2, maybe 3 inbetween the existing ones.

 

[Pennywise]

Really? 2 or 3, that wont weaken the structure at all? I reackon with my shaky hands I'd be lucky to get 2 in there :lol: . Will give it a crack, one question though, if I was to use it how it was, would there be any drawbacks apart from a slower flow rate? Efficiency maybe? It's just that I really want to get this Dunkelweizen down tomorrow but the tools I use to clean up the filings are at work so if I done the work before the brewing I'd have to wait till next weekend, and my grain was cracked a week ago so I'd like to use it.

 

[raven19]

With the brew coming up I would just sparge reeeallllly slllllooooowwww!

Off Topic - are you adding some rice gulls to the mash being a wheat beer? I would throw a handful or two in personally.

Back back to your Q - I would sparge slow, I reckon your efficiency will be fine, and above 70 at least.

You can also recirculate more of your first runnings to get a slightly better wash of sugars off the grains.

It shall go well! :icon_cheers:

 

[Pennywise]

Most of the wheat will be liquid extract, I'll be mashing 2kg of Munich 2 with a touch of spec grain. Does the Munich malt have the same tendancy to stick?

 

[raven19]

Sorry thought it was a full AG batch - re: munich you should be fine mate. Ignore the gulls (and this pesky Raven....)! :lol:

 

[Pennywise]

No probs Raven, First AG will be after a couple of partials with the tun to get any issues sorted that it may have, and basically just get a feel for it before I plunge in. Cheers

 

[alowen474]

Your slots will be fine. The sparge needs to flow evenly through the grain bed so too many openings can work against you.
The drilled holes are really pretty though!!
once your silicone is set i dont think you'll have any issues with that either.

 

[Pennywise]

Yeah I've already half filled it with hot water to test for leaks and all is good so far. I like the look of the holes as well, pity I went through 3 drill bits doing it, I reckon the drilled holes would work really well filtering some bits that might get through the slots, it's just a pain in the arse to do it.

 

[manticle]

I get minimal bits through my slots. Might depend on the crush, I'm not sure but I usually have mostly 'crushed nuts' size and a tiny bit of flour with a few whole grains.

No innuendos on any count intended or accepted. Go for it HB79. Put that baby to use.

 

[Pennywise]

No innuendos on any count intended or accepted. Go for it HB79. Put that baby to use.

:lol: You know I think this'll be the first weekend in years where I'll set my alarm to get up, I'm that excited.

 

[alowen474]

You won't need the alarm!!
You'll be lying in bed wondering if its too early to start!!

 

[Fermented]

401 is OK.

I've used it in aquariums long term. Fish are a heap more sensitive to chemicals than humans.

I would give it a day or three in the sun to get rid of the odour during curing and the potential that the chemical reaction could cause an issue with your beloved beer.

There is a rapid cure method (don't recall the source) that involves a solution of baking soda or a baking soda paste. The intent is to neutralise the surface and a couple of mm below. I think it takes a day or two for a nominally good result. You may need to use your google-fu to check that as my memory is fuzzy.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[Pennywise]

I decided yesterday to put a brew down before the Dunkelweizen cause I wanted to know the efficiency this thing will give me and what temp my mash in water should be (used the same profile that's to be used with the Dunkel) because I really want the dunkelweizen to go without a hitch, was a simple 2kg BB ale malt with a few spec malts that was going in with a Coopers Euro lager goo. Got 72% efficiency according to BS, meh, not too bad. So now I tweeked the Dunkel recipe to suite. Just mashed in about 15 mins ago and got my temp pretty spot on, about half a degree over, where as yesterday I was a few degrees out. Dunno what happened but I noticed a leak from my dodgy silicone job that wasn't there yesterday, but when I dumped the grain in it didn't leak anymore, yay. So no questions really, just more of an update, will post back with efficiency of this brew, doubt it'll change though, we'll see.

 

[Pennywise]

Dunkelweizen went off without a hitch, managed to ger 80% eff out of it this time, I think due to a half batch sparge half fly sparge ish sort of sparge. So I now have a stronger beer than anticipated but not heaps because only half fermentables were from the mash. All in all turned out well I think. I will still add a few more slots to the manifold though, and try and fix the small leak that doesn't leak when there's grain in the tun.

 

[raven19]

Nice work on improving 8% in 1 batch of beer!

80% is great imo.